National Spatial Data Infrastructure India (NSDI-India)—Present Status and the Future Strategies

Abstract

National Spatial Data Infrastructure -India (NSDI India), has been implemented as a network of spatial data nodes established in various data providing agencies in central and state governments towards improving access to geospatial data by all stakeholders. A set of geospatial data and process standard specifications from Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC ) and International Standardization Organization (ISO ) have been adopted to facilitate interoperable sharing of and access to data amongst organizational data nodes and end-users. Standards -based Web Map Services (WMS ) are accessible from data providing agencies for use in the development of GIS applications. Efforts are afoot to reengineer and maintain available data sets for provision of Web Feature Services (WFS) for improving access to processable feature data sets with stakeholders. Collaborative preparation and maintenance of an authoritative, seamless and nationally consistent set of high-resolution National Foundation Spatial Data (NFSD) has been an important priority for NSDI to overcome problems in integration of data sets from multiple data nodes. Several national- and state-level policies have been in place to provide the required governance framework. Delays in data cleaning and reengineering; inefficient data/metadata update; absence of registry and catalogue service to support search and discovery; nonavailability of a common application development platform; delays in onboarding of data services/applications; insecurity of the cyberspace; lack of technical capacity amongst end-users; and absence of skilled personnel for building and maintaining data nodes have been some of the impediments before NSDI ’s effective utilization. National Data Registry (NDR ) to support registration, search and discovery of data services; application development on a cloud-based processing platform; development of ontologies for ensuring semantic interoperability amongst data nodes; and deployment of advanced cybersecurity tools for preventing cyberattacks; and R&D in geospatial ontologies, 3D SDI and geoanalytics constitute a part of the NSDI ’s strategy for the future.